


when they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky

by inkandcayenne



Category: True Detective
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 04:53:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5444000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkandcayenne/pseuds/inkandcayenne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A silly Christmas thing.  Comments always appreciated.  Thanks to the lovely Hannah (blackeyedblonde) for the prompt!</p>
            </blockquote>





	when they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky

Look--it’s not an exact science.  

(Not a science at all, I suppose.   _Magic_ , most call it, although the Catholic Church very pointedly won’t.  Fucked if I know what it is exactly, but I’m not applying the word “magic” to something that results in such a high volume of reindeer shit.)

All I’m saying is: after achieving what should be an impossible feat damn near two thousand times, I suppose it was bound to go tits-up at some point.  And that’s exactly what’s happened: a dark, moonless night, driving ice and snow, a giant gust of wind and suddenly everything’s spinning and I’m flying one direction and my mode of transport and its eight attendants are flying the other.  

Fucking Alaska.

I climb out of the snowbank with a groan--gonna be bruised to hell and back tomorrow--and limp over to the sleigh to survey the damage.  A splintered runner pointed up at the sky like a broken arm, brightly wrapped boxes scattered far as the eye can see, and Dasher--true to his name--hauling ass over the nearest hillside like the worthless sonofabitch he is.  His siblings have already started to wander around the edges of the field, pawing through the snow for something interesting to nibble on.  I turn to the one who’s always easiest to spot.  

“I thought I hired you to prevent this kind of shit from happening,” I say pointedly.  “Some fucking help you are.”

He shifts his big brown eyes to the side, looking every bit like a puppy that’s been caught going through the garbage, and buries his bright red nose in the snow.  Vixen and Donner amble over to a large fir tree and curl up beneath it.  “You’re still on the clock, fuckers,” I call out.  They ignore me, tuck their noses under their spindly front legs, and go to sleep.  

At least it’s near the end of the night, only about couple thousand miles left to cover: Ellesmere after this, then Qaanaaq, then home.  Fucked if I know how I’m gonna get the sleigh turned over, though.  

The elves are never gonna let me live this down.  

There’s a movement out of the corner of my eye, and I start.  A bear?  No; too small to be a bear.  Something kid-sized, in a coat and boots way too big for him, over patched-up jeans and a frayed sweater that look too small.  

“Hi there,” I say.

No response, but after a moment he begins to pick his way across the field on gangly legs, hands shoved deep in his pockets.  He looks about eight, maybe an undernourished ten.  Not a kid’s face, though.  Keen-eyed and sharp-boned, with sand-colored hair, damp with ice, curling against his cheeks.  He narrows his eyes slightly and looks out over the wreck, his expression mildly contemptuous, as if to suggest that if _he_ had a sleigh, _he_ would never be so careless with it.   _He_ understands reindeer, and thermodynamics, and the weather patterns of the North Slope borough.  I’ve dealt with this type before.  They always ask for books, or intricate model trains built to scale, or chemistry sets, and next year they’re back on your lap, informing you that last year’s gift was shit.  They’re not really children; they’re just short, impatient adults.  

“Hey,” he finally replies.

“You live around here?”

He jerks his head back in the direction of the hillside behind him; I can just make out a small wooden structure that could charitably be called a cabin.  “Up there.”

“What’s your name?”

He scrubs along the side of his nose with one mittened hand.  I can see him debating the pros and cons of giving a strange adult such information.  “Rustin.”

Weird name.  “Hi, Rustin.  I’m Kris.”  I hold out my hand to shake, but he just rolls his eyes.  “Oh, a skeptic, huh?”

“I guess,” he answers, peering warily at Rudolph out of the corner of one eye.  “Always seemed like bullshit, to me.”

“Your folks should have told you different.”  I dig a candy cane out of my pocket and hold it out.  He eyes it suspiciously for a moment, and then reaches out and takes it.  

“I ain’t got a mom,” he retorts, “and my pop says you’re the last great fever dream of post-Reformation capitalism.”

“Your pop sounds like an asshole,” I reply.  

He shrugs, unwraps the candy cane, and sticks it firmly in the corner of his mouth.  

I gesture helplessly toward the wrecked sleigh.  “So, Rustin, you gonna give me a hand here, or what?”

He comes closer, walking the perimeter of the crash with a measured pace, gently kicking presents out of his path without looking at them.  His cheeks hollow out as he sucks on the peppermint.  He approaches the side of the sleigh, locates where the runner is splintered from impact and raps at it experimentally with two knuckles, then crouches down in the snow and starts to unlace his boots.  “Hitch your strongest two over on that side,” he grunts around the candy cane in his mouth, nodding in the direction of the reindeer.  By the time I’ve coaxed Prancer and Cupid over with carrots and fastened their bridles to the sled, he’s tied his laces firmly around the broken runner.  It takes some shoving and swearing on both our parts, but by the time Dasher’s pansy ass has come wandering back over the crest of the hill, we’ve righted the sleigh.  

“You probably wanna get it airborne quick as you can,” he says as I climb in and take the bridle.  “It won’t hold long where I tied it.”

“Oh, so you _do_ believe I can fly, huh?”  I get a deadpan glare in response to that.  “Okay, okay, fine.  I guess if you still think I’m bullshit, I shouldn’t bother to ask what I can give you for Christmas in exchange for saving my ass.”

He’s quiet for a long moment and I think he’s about to turn around and walk away.  He doesn’t look at me, just cuts his eyes to the ground, kicks at the snow hard.  When he finally speaks, I have to lean forward to hear him over the wind.  “Maybe you could bring me someone to hang out with, or something?  It’s really boring up here.”

That’s not really my gig, but I can’t bring myself to say so; he looks a lot younger all of this sudden, his eyes too wide in his thin face.  “I’ll see what I can do,” I reply.  “Might take me awhile.  You want something from the bag, in the meantime?”

He peers into the sack, considers its contents for a moment, then reaches out and grabs a little blue box, its edge dented and white ribbon askew from the crash.  Fucked if I can even remember what’s in it--necklace, I think?  A keychain?  “Don’t you wanna know what’s in it first?”

He shakes his head.  “I like the color.  Tastes like summer.”  

“You’re weird, kid,” I say.

“Yeah.  I know.  Drive safe, Santa.”  

_Merry Christmas_ I start to say but he’s already turned away, shuffling slowly up the hill in his unlaced boots.


End file.
